During the night of 18/19th June 2007, we had quite a serious
fire in the kitchen of the church rooms when the water heater
above the sink caught fire due to an electrical fault. This in
turn set fire to the surrounding units and in a very short space
of time the whole of the rooms were engulfed in smoke.
They could have burnt down, but the water supply to the heater
burst and in effect became a sprinkler system and put the fire
out, but not before the fabric of the rooms was very badly smoke
damaged and a layer of sooty filth is everywhere. The water then
kept on gushing out and flooded the top pink room to a depth of
several centimetres in places and it was a complete disaster
area when Maureen arrived at work. (pictures below do not do
justice to the damage sustained)
Our church administrators,
Jenny Hopley & Maureen Rouse, were amazing by keeping calm
in a very stressful situation and then organising the insurers
to sort out professional cleaners and restorers, who have
already started the work of getting our rooms back into usable order. Thank
you so much.
